


Belgard

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: The Ya'aburnee Timestamps [5]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Establishing Relationship, M/M, Possessiveness, Rough Sex, adoration, based post murder and mercy, before ya'aburnee, reassurance, ya'aburnee verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:39:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2828576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“How has work been?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Many sessions and few conversations,” Hannibal replies, taking in the destruction within the room, the destruction within Will himself. For the moment, he does not comment, though there is something there, a flame, a spark for one, perhaps, that burns warm in his stomach for him to wake Will up to himself again.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“You missed our appointment,” he adds, tone rising in inquiry.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belgard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WarpedChyld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarpedChyld/gifts).



> A wonderful commission for a very dear friend. This is for you, [Steph](http://warpedchyld.tumblr.com/), not only because you asked for it but because we adore writing anything and everything for you, always. We hope you enjoy our take on possessive Hannibal here, you know Ya'aburnee better than we do, now!

The call goes unanswered again, and Hannibal considers the possibility that perhaps he had underestimated Will’s ability to cast himself invisible.

Several days since the scotch, still unfinished in the cellar, untouched but not forgotten. A promise in itself, that bottle, that Will is slowly breaking, and Hannibal thinks that perhaps there is something to be said for reality invading a relationship.

He checks the ledger for appointment times he knows by heart, and sets it away again, tapping the end of his pen to the paper in front of him before uncapping it and commencing his reports. It is early evening, a time Will would be with his dogs. Perhaps the call was unheard, perhaps the reply would come heralded by wagging tails and warm fur as Will returned.

After seven days ensconced in each other, it was an abrupt end to return to work. Will had left in the morning after another sleepless night, to return to Wolf Trap and tend the dogs and leave again for Baltimore, where Jack awaited them both.

A cruelty, it seemed, not to be able to greet each other there with fingers interlaced and mouths against each other’s palms.

The scene’s familiarity struck Hannibal as uncomfortably warm. Will spoke in soft tones and diversions, half-truths and discomfort. Overlooking their display, Hannibal could not stop his thoughts from drifting. Guiding Will’s hands across flesh and bone, pressed close against his back to stop his shaking, as they paid tribute to the man, the beast that finally brought them so near.

They had not seen each other since then, when Will returned with Jack to headquarters.

He rubbed beneath his glasses as he went, circles dark beneath his eyes, and did not turn back towards Hannibal when they left.

Will Graham is not one to crack under pressure, his mind too strong to merely stop in situations too stressful, Hannibal knows, but it is not immune to guilt. The guilt that eats at him like decay, starting small and coiling forward until every part of him is in pain from it.

Guilt, Hannibal cannot take away from him, only Will can ease the spread of it, but he can push forward an understanding, a reminder and gentling of deeds done.

He wonders if, perhaps, Will has simply forgotten, now that life has invaded their lungs, the promises made on both sides, not just his own. He recaps the pen and sets it to the table, fingers careful over the smooth surface before Hannibal sits back and presses that hand to his face.

A reminder, then, perhaps.

\---

Will thumbs across the screen where Hannibal’s name is displayed. Missed call, no voicemail. The same as the day before, and the day before that. One call, no message.

He drops his phone onto the couch to take it away from fingers that itch to dial him back, to hear Hannibal’s voice and the relief that will flood both of them, unrestrained. Spreading a hand across his face, Will sighs against it and imagines for a moment it’s Hannibal’s skin against his mouth instead.

Hannibal is busy, Will tells himself, he must be. Patients to see after a week feigning illness. Paperwork to complete and records to update after a week spent in each other’s arms.

His hypocrisy tastes like scotch, distant, days removed but it’s there and he can feel it and it burns. A cruelty, it seems, to both, and for no reason but the weight that smothers breath and words alike from Will.

He’ll call after tending to the dogs, he said, though they lay well-fed and sleepy across the old wooden floor.

He’ll call after eating dinner, he said, though it cools uneaten on the table and soon in the garbage instead.

He’ll call after he has a drink, he said, but now he’s on his third and the reality that had been so easy to avoid in those seven days together now speaks to him in rough accusation that what they’ve built, they’ve built on the blood and bone of others.

A quick swallow of cheap whiskey to numb his throat and Will makes himself walk past the darkened phone to his bed, sprawling wide across it and still not finding the comfort it used to bring, just cold sheets and hard springs and emptiness. That, at least, familiar.

He thinks of the fixed window, can see it when he tilts his head back. Can see, too, Hannibal standing by the edge of it, pulling plastic taut for Will to secure it. He swallows, rolls to press his face to the pillow instead, a soft groan enough to rouse some of the more attentive canines and bring the clicking of claws over wood as they come join him in bed. Three, he thinks. Winston and Ayla and Maggie.

All settle heavy but settle quiet, and Will curls into a smaller ball where he lies, thinking of the warm hands that had soothed down his back, curled around to his front and held him so gently, so secure.

Seven days was long enough, surely. Surely the pretense, now, could fade and they could return to what they were before this. Acquaintances. Sessions. Conversations. Nothing more than words, words, words, trickling through enough to feel but mean very little.

Surely.

Hannibal wanted to see him changed. A ceaseless war between them that somehow reached a temporary peace would rage again in soft tones and narrow looks and insurmountable distances. Hannibal wanted to see him changed, and had, for a time, only a time - had thought Will altered by his experience, but would inevitably see him again and the guilt that Will can feel carving deeper lines into his face, furrows in his brow.

Will tells himself that he is not a killer. He is not a monster. They were not his hands that tore muscle and sinew, that beat bone into fragments and spread blood across Hannibal’s bare chest where they stumbled to the stairs. It was not his body that moved beneath Hannibal’s own, it was not his desperate promises for this to never end.

But Will has never been able to lie to himself. Not when the truths of others illuminate enough for him to see them. His own burns bright and scalding hot, and he tries to stop himself from imagining the disappointment on Hannibal’s face when he sees how much and how little Will has changed for him.

Night melts to morning and Will misses his alarm.

He misses a call at three.

He manages four glasses before he goes to bed once more.

He wakes in a cold sweat and wonders why his bed is empty when he reaches, fingers tangling in the sheets as they once had with Hannibal's own on top, gently spreading them to slip his own between.

He misses a call at eleven.

By the time the dogs are fed, Will has set one bottle outside the door, and he doesn't hear the crunch of gravel under wheels as he goes inside. He realizes soon enough, when there comes a knock, when brown eyes raise to meet his own and that smile that manifests nowhere but his eyes moves Hannibal's expression to warmth.

"Hello, Will."

Will’s fingers tense against the doorframe before he can stop them, a mimic to the tightness in his throat that gathers swift. “You drove all the way out here?” he asks, voice rough with disuse and whiskey, and clears it as best he can before attempting a smile. It falters, and both can feel it. “Hello doctor,” he murmurs instead, stepping back to lean against the door, and allow Hannibal entry.

Will follows the lines of his body as he steps inside, slender and elegant, beautifully tailored in checks of rich red and deep brown, and when he reaches Hannibal’s shoes - removed just inside the door - Will leaves his gaze on the floor.

He smells like booze, he must, suddenly and keenly aware of how drunk he’s made himself and how early in the day it is, how long it’s been since he’s managed a proper shower and how many clothes he’s left scattered across the floor. Had he known he was coming, he would have cleaned up, left no evidence for Hannibal’s eyes to search over and to know how much he’s faltered in his becoming.

Will makes no apologies for it, when they all feel so insufficient, and instead manages, weakly, “How has work been?”

“Many sessions and few conversations,” Hannibal replies, taking in the destruction within the room, the destruction within Will himself. For the moment, he does not comment, though there is something there, a flame, a spark for one, perhaps, that burns warm in his stomach for him to wake Will up to himself again.

“You missed our appointment,” he adds, tone rising in inquiry, to see if Will would find an excuse immediately or take his time constructing one. Hannibal holds his hand out for Maggie to sniff, her long tail swaying, pleased at seeing him again.

Extending a hand for his coat, Will watches the dog rather than the movement of Hannibal’s fingers against the buttons, the gentle twist that frees it from his shoulders. He can feel the weight of the doctor’s attention on him, tracking his movements. Observing.

Judging, Will tells himself.

But Will has never been able to lie to himself.

“I should have called,” he says, and for a moment, Hannibal can’t help but be a little amused that rather than make an excuse, Will avoided the answer entirely. The coat is hung and without stopping in his nervous, ambling trajectory through the kitchen, Will makes his way to the stove to start coffee, as much to sober himself up as to offer it to his guest.

To someone who is everything but.

“I went out to dinner,” Will finally explains. “Alana asked me and we’ve hardly spoken in months. Thought we owed it to each other.”  
A hum, considering, and Hannibal turns to follow Will to the kitchen, for the moment keeping the counter between them to give Will room to think through his answers. He wonders, truly, if Alana had asked Will or if Will, in his desperation to regain his status quo ante, had asked her instead. A brave move, if the latter, something he would commend Will on had it not so deliberately avoided him in the process.

There is a moment, just one, where Hannibal wonders if perhaps he has no right to lay such a claim on Will, controlling and possessive. 

But promises had been made from them both, desperate and breathless from Will’s lips as he had sought comfort and strength in Hannibal’s arms as the scotch warmed him. There is an underlying desperation in Will, now, that Hannibal cannot settle until he understands _why_ , until he can get Will to explain it to himself.

“She is well, I trust,” Hannibal says at length. “Always good company.” There is implication in his tone, angled towards the guilt he knows twists Will in his sleep, using it, for the time, to his advantage before he soothes it from the man.

Will focuses on the coffee, gestures he could perform in his sleep and has, or near enough to it. Measuring and adjusting, pouring out water and refilling it, to keep the weight of Hannibal’s attention at his back rather than at his eyes. A sudden urge to shout, to apologize, to tell Hannibal how sick he has felt and that he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him to act this way, and that he does know - exactly - why he acts this way and that he hates it.

He sucks his lips between his teeth and holds them there, to feign distraction with the copper coffee pot instead.

“She is,” Will finally says. “Well. Busy. It was kind of her to make time for me after everything.”

There is nothing left to do but wait for the water to heat, and Will braces his hands against the counter before turning to lean against it, arms folded across his chest. “I should have called -”

“You should have answered,” comes the reply, almost amicable, and Hannibal watches the way the laugh takes form of another sigh and Will’s shoulders tense. He nods, and Hannibal shifts just enough for Will to direct his eyes to him, not yet moving from behind the counter.

“I will not go away if I am ignored, Will,” he says, a warning as much as anything could be, though his voice remains calm. “If you do not wish for my company I will not force it on you, but I would have you say it, before I take my leave.”

There is an offer, within, for their company to end, for their promises to wither, though Hannibal doubts, if Will has so adamantly avoided him, that that is what he wishes for. He himself has felt those words sear into his skin, slide warm down his throat as he took a breath and attempted sleep again, alone.

The threat, however mild, is not lost on Will and he rubs his palms against his eyes, already red-rimmed and aching from lack of sleep. Beyond the brightness that he grinds into the backs of his eyelids, Will sees the river, glittering bright in the summer sun, and knows that even in imagining it, he is not alone there.

His hands fall to his side, rather than cross over him again. Open. Exposed.

“What was I supposed to say?” Will asks, not an accusation but something smaller, something more lost. “Hello, how are you, I hate myself today? Hello, how’s work, I haven’t slept in three days because I can’t stop seeing his fucking fangs every time I close my eyes? Hello, how’s everything, I don’t know how any of this is supposed to goddamn work or how it managed to for even a week?”

The words taste like bile, sound just as acrid, and Will lifts his hands as if in submission - to his own lack of control, to that which Hannibal has unfurled in him - and steps away to pick up, gathering clothes from the floor, pushing shoes aside, nervous quick gestures that he can’t stop any more than he can control any other part of himself.

Hannibal follows, enough to catch Will’s arm and gently raise him from a bend.

“Why do you hate yourself when you have done a kindness to a man who would see you shredded?” he asks softly, standing shoulder to shoulder with Will, head ducked to speak quietly against his ear, he does not let Will go, but his grip is not painful, it is not cruel. “You see the fangs you gave him, as a mercy on your part, to allow him to die as he had imagined himself to live. It is a selflessness, Will, that he would not have honored you with.”

A pause, brief, and Hannibal turns his head enough to breathe Will in, sweat and exhaustion and nerves, dust and dog and coffee.

“Why did you not come, when you couldn’t sleep?” he asks him softly.

Though Will tenses, once, and finds himself held still, he does not fight the nearness more than that, eyes closing instead. Distance, space, forcing it between them when he wants nothing more than to sink against Hannibal and let the weight be taken from him. The words are spoken in earnest but they do not settle into him, not as they did over the last week as Hannibal had reassured him, they do little more now than make Will’s heart beat faster.

His smile is humorless. “I didn’t imagine I’d find much comfort just then,” he murmurs. “Held in the same way you held me when I decapitated a dead boy. When I ripped his ribs out with my hands. When I defiled him and -” The thought chokes him and he shakes his head, eyes squeezing tighter shut.

“I could almost convince myself,” Will says, his voice hardly above a whisper, “almost tell myself that I had done the right thing, until I saw him displayed. Like - like a thing. Like an exhibit in the goddamn museum he _worked_ in. It wasn’t special anymore.” Finally, Will jerks his wrist free and Hannibal releases him, but neither step away, inches between them. “It was just another murder.”

A moment as Hannibal rights his breathing, settles his heart. He can feel the tremors run through Will as they had on the stairs, as they had the night after he had chased and caught Will in Baltimore, proving how easy it would have been to him, and how impossible to himself, to kill him.

“For one week,” he says gently, “we were out of time, nothing existed but the snow and frozen river, the record player and the taste of your fingers on my skin.”

_Never another murder, never the darkness you face daily and I make at will, never once anything but what we are to each other, now._

“What did you promise me?” Hannibal asks him softly, turning his head so he can catch Will’s eyes, close enough that were he to lean forward he would press his lips to the unruly curls on Will’s head.

Will does not meet his eyes but in a glance. He looks to the lines of his face, the curves of his mouth, so familiar that he could trace their shape by memory and carrying in them no judgment, no spite for Will’s conviction.

Weakness.

Humanity.

“Anything,” Will whispers, cheeks darkening as Hannibal lays a hand against his skin.

“And?”

“Always.” Guilt pulls a hard swallow from the younger man, shame snares it in his throat. Even as he turns his face to bury it against Hannibal’s palm something wrenches sharp through his shoulders and pulls them inward, and he shakes his head, nearly trembling from the force of it. “But I - I can’t, Hannibal - I can’t give you anything, everything - I thought I could but -”

A hum, soft, enough to calm Will for Hannibal to wrap his other arm around him, a hand around his middle, the other in his hair. He had been beautiful, beyond words, covered in blood and preparing the body. His choice to honor Randall, his choice to present him, though he will not remind Will of that now.

He had been beautiful then. The most beautiful to Hannibal until he had woken up to Will beside him, still asleep and hair a mess, lips parted to breathe and one hand up against his face.

“Would that you never see murder,” he whispers to Will, feeling his heart beating fast against his palm. “Would that you never suffer seeing through the eyes of those that killed them. You have given me everything. To treasure and remember and hold within myself so you never have to.”

Now their eyes meet, Will’s narrowed in confusion, brows knit as he attempts to draw away and finds himself held fast. He curls his hands against Hannibal’s chest but does not push him. “You’re lying to yourself,” Will says, as insistent in his words as he is in his hope that he is wrong. “You want me to be that.”

He sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, the color of his cheeks garish against how pale he’s become but for the ruddy blush of frustration that paints itself beneath his eyes. “You want me to be that with you,” Will insists, eyes widening. “I know you did and don’t - don’t tell me you didn’t. That’s why you made it happen, that’s why you made me take him apart and -” He swallows, hard, fear gripping him as familiar as the arms that surround him still. “You’ll make me do it again and I won’t. I can’t. And I don’t know what you’ll do when that happens,” he breathes.

“I want you,” Hannibal’s voice lowers, a growl within he doesn’t let come forth in more than warning, “to be with me, as you are.”

Hannibal brings his hands to Will’s face, framing it, stroking soft against the cheekbones, under his eyes, up to his hair again, the grip enough to draw a breath from Will, not to hurt him.

“You are capable, you are so capable,” Hannibal whispers, “and you are beautiful beyond description that way but it devours you, that grace, that predatory whim that snares you and holds you tight.” He twists his fingers, enough to pull Will’s head back, another sound from him, barely voiced, but his eyes widen, darken, seek between Hannibal’s own for words he has not said yet, words he may not say and Will fears that the most.

“I wanted to share that with you, to have you grasped by it as I had been but when I did, you could not do it, you burned bright in your beauty and then the ashes choked you. The week I spent putting you together I would not take back for the world, every piece you shared with me, every piece that cut your skin that I kissed the blood away from, every single piece of you was mine, then, because you let it be.”

A breath, enough for Hannibal’s eyes to flicker in the semblance of a blink, for his fingers to snare just that minute pressure harder to draw a sigh from Will before Hannibal bends to press their foreheads together.

“ _That_ is everything, Will, that is what you are to me. The pieces I have handled and returned, reshaped and fixed, those are the parts of you I want as my own.”

The words should run cold through him, Will knows, they should chill him to the core and send him far from this, from all of it, from Hannibal and the FBI and from Wolf Trap and from the world that sears itself inside of him again and again. He has been broken and built, remade and reformed, and the power in the man that holds him in such sway is terrifying.

He should fear him, and fear how easily Hannibal has wound himself inside of Will enough to cover him in blood and still make his heart race when he kissed it away.

But Will has never been able to lie to himself, and as much as he cries out inside to believe it isn’t so, he knows that the choices he made were his own.

To kill Randall.

To butcher and display him.

To lean into Hannibal, now, and bury his head against his shoulder and soften into his arms, sighing shaking relief when Hannibal’s arms wrap tight around him.

“You have them,” Will whispers. “I could never give them to anyone else.”

Hannibal’s sigh is genuine relief, holding Will against him as he presses close himself, as he had that night with the scotch, the nights before then. As Hannibal hopes more nights to come, where they seek comfort in each other from days filled with tediums neither want. And with the relief comes the tug in his chest, the yank to feel Will against him and remind him what pieces of himself are his own and which he has given Hannibal.

He presses a kiss to the side of Will’s head, harsher than perhaps warranted the moment, but far from cruel. Possessive, relieved, inordinately pleased to be allowed this again, to have it welcome.

“Oh, Will,” he sighs, burying his nose in Will’s hair again, letting his eyes close. He wonders if Will knows just how much of himself he has given, how much he has allowed to be seen and touched and kept. Behind them, the coffee hisses as it hits the element, overflowing from the pot, and Will jerks at the sound, Hannibal soothing him enough to press close to him again, murmur that coffee can wait.

With a huff of breath, a laugh, however small, too weakened by relief to do more than that, Will stretches away, fingers snared in Hannibal’s before he can go too far, and shuts off the burner. No sooner does it click off than Hannibal tugs him back and brings Will tight against him, hands in his hair and mouth hungry against his lips.

Will makes a small sound, a release of tension sudden enough to dizzy him, and brings his fingers up to press against Hannibal’s cheeks as the older man walks him slowly backwards towards the bed.

“Christ, I missed you,” Will breathes, only allowed that much before another kiss steals his words away. They collapse backwards, fitted together as if they had never separated, and Will draws a leg up alongside Hannibal’s hip, arching backwards, breathless, neck bared as he sighs. “I missed being yours.”

“You forgot,” Hannibal murmurs against his neck, fingers still cool from outside but not cold as they seek beneath Will’s shirt, up against his stomach, until Will wriggles around and shifts enough to pull it over his head, “the promises I made in return, the things I pressed to your skin have faded.”

It is such a soft comment, entirely gentle, no threat at all behind the words but Will shivers regardless, tilts his head back further and Hannibal presses his lips to it, tastes his Will again as he works his jacket from his shoulders and lets it fall to the floor.

“It cannot be a week so close, a week apart, Will, I will find more permanent reminders for you.” More promises, kissed down Will’s chest, to his stomach, against the waistband of his pants that deft fingers work open and slide from his hips.

Inching back onto the bed, Will watches as his pants remain - finally slipping from his feet - and Hannibal pursues. Another kiss against his stomach draws a twitch of muscle and a soft laugh, and Will presses his hand across his face, closing his eyes now not in fear but in relief that this isn’t gone, that he didn’t run far enough or fast enough to avoid the man who worships against his skin again.

“Make me remember,” Will murmurs, finally lowering his hands to Hannibal’s hair and mussing the straight strands between his fingers. He raises his hips for his boxers to be slid free, and gasps when slick warmth surrounds him, chest rising and falling on quick little breaths as he begins to harden against Hannibal’s tongue.

The hum in response resonates up Will’s spine, bending him from the bed, curling hot in his belly, and with his bottom lip held between his teeth, Will lifts his bare feet to brace them against Hannibal’s shoulders.

“I won’t miss another appointment,” promises Will. “I’ll come to you when I can’t sleep.”

Another hum, amused, as Hannibal continues to suck, lips tight around the head, tongue sliding the sensitive skin against itself until Will moans softly and bends further. Hannibal settles one hand against Will’s ankle, curled around him before carefully sliding it back to the bed, spreading his legs wider as he sucks Will deep again, as he feels Will’s toes curl against his shoulder, against his wrist.

He knows, by the hungry arch of his body, by the soft little noises, what Will wants from him, endearing in his demand for it, always, needy and coy as he ever is, just for this.

Hannibal takes his time pulling back, enough that Will is fully flushed beneath him, entirely bare while Hannibal remains dressed. He catches the hooded look, the way red tongue curls bottom lip between white teeth, allows a smile before ducking his head again, hearing Will’s breathing speed up as his fingers tug Hannibal’s hair, curl in the sheets beneath himself.

Once, just one long lick from the rim of Will’s hole up to just behind his balls, and Hannibal pulls away, leans up to press a kiss to the corner of Will’s mouth.

“No, you will not," he tells him, his smile enough to draw a plaintive groan from Will, and when his lips return to skin they tug a nipple, entirely ignore where Will wants him to be.

Will realizes, of course, what the threat has become and hides a laugh behind his hand. Hannibal’s teeth press against the hardened nub enough to draw a gasp, and Will drapes his arm across his brow to watch, flushed to scarlet and panting past parted lips. Another nip, another soft suck, and pleasure courses through Will hard enough to send his fingers stretching and his toes curling against the sheets.

“Hannibal,” Will murmurs, and turning dark eyes upwards, Hannibal pauses, breath warm where Will’s heart beats fast. For him, only for him, there is no one else who sees him this way, who can show him such horror and beauty in overwhelming extremes.

And to see Hannibal now, himself a paradox of ferocity and tenderness, makes Will wonder how he ever thought he could stand against the world without him. For a day, a week, even an hour apart now seems as foreign a concept as Will has ever considered, and though apology perches on his lips he knows when Hannibal runs his hands along Will’s sides and kisses his heart that - as with so many things between them - there is no need to speak it.

“Please,” asks Will instead, shivering at the slow smile that Hannibal offers in response.

“When you come to me again,” Hannibal tells him, and Will can do nothing more than allow himself to grin, and hide his eyes behind his arm again.

He is kissed, mouths tugging roughly together, teeth biting and tongues tracing whatever they meet. Strong fingers gently grasp Will’s wrist to bring his arm away from his face, to allow Hannibal to see his eyes again when he rolls his hips between Will’s legs and Will’s cheeks flood rose-red and lovely.

“You will come to me,” asks Hannibal, “when you need. When you don’t need. When I need or I wish you to.” It is hardly a question. They both know the truth of it, that neither could stay apart if their very lives depended on it. Will nods anyway, pulling Hannibal’s hand against his mouth to kiss his palm, apology by way of submission, an acknowledgment of his wrong and his intent to make it right again.

But there is no blame here, this is not a pushing of guilt, it is a reminder. That Will is here, now, alive and safe and feeling good, that the cause of that good rests against him in heavy silk blends and warm cotton. It is a reminder of what they shared, and what they promised, a reminder that were one of them to go, to try and forget, the other would come and find them, and help them remember.

“And you will sleep,” Hannibal tells him, nose just behind Will’s ear to draw a tickling line there before he tugs gently as his earlobe, slides fingers into his hair and pulls it to elicit another moan. “With me, here, in Baltimore, but you will sleep.”

“Yes -”

Will’s fingers fumble, over the buttons of Hannibal’s shirt, down to run nails over the skin there, the muscles taut and strong though they are rarely seen, until Hannibal growls against him and Will bites his lip to seek his belt, the button of his pants, the fly.

“A week, Will,” Hannibal sighs against him, and the breath soothes over Will’s cheek before Hannibal kisses him there. “Please, never again.”

Will shakes his head in agreement, eyes wide as Hannibal kisses the other cheek in turn, his forehead, his nose, his mouth again, tilting him back into the pillow as Will pushes against Hannibal in response. “Never,” Will promises. “Never again, Hannibal, I -”

“I know.” Hannibal skims his fingertips down the scruffy curve of Will’s jaw, and Will grins to feel them jump when he slips his hands into Hannibal’s pants to grasp him. Fingers curving along his length, thick beneath his touch where he traces the veins that run along it to feel them jump against his fingertips. He strokes slowly upward until Hannibal’s cock is freed from his pants, just the glistening pink tip of it before Will circles his hands to the man’s narrow hips, and slips his pants down lower, lower, to his thighs before Hannibal takes Will’s wrist in his hand and pins it back against the pillow.

Will goes with a shuddering moan, bringing the other up before Hannibal needs to reach for it. An allowance, to be held, to be kept, as much as Will made the choice to disallow, and remind himself of the agonizing loneliness that only once removed could be felt to its depths.

“Stay,” Hannibal tells him, biting against Will’s bottom lip before releasing his hands to sit back on his knees.

Though his fingers curl together, Will leaves his wrists as if they were still held. He watches with need, want, guilt, desire as Hannibal works free those buttons that Will did not manage to loosen - his waistcoat first, and then his shirt. Where once Will spread Hannibal, with instructions sighed against his ear and lean body coiling above him to taunt with what he - in play, at least - was not allowed to touch, now Will bends aching upward towards Hannibal who simply watches, eyes narrowed in pleasure.

He bares himself slowly, deliberately as Will once had, climbing off the bed to fold his clothes onto a chair before returning, arms hooking beneath Will’s knees to spread him and push him further up the bed. He kisses over his chest, draws teeth against Will’s throat and kisses him deep, fingers circling his hole but not pushing in dry. A reminder, not a punishment.

He parts them, fingers up to Will’s lips now for him to suck as Hannibal watches, takes him in, remembers him this way. A week seems a pathetically short time and yet all at once insufferably long. Will draws his teeth over the pads of his fingers and Hannibal's lip curls in a snarl, brief, lightning quick, and Will’s eyes narrow in dark pleasure. 

Hannibal reaches, enough to take one hand obediently held above Will’s head to take into his mouth in turn, mirroring the pleasure for him, allowing Will to explore, watching fascination dawn over his features as it always does when touching him this way.

Hannibal does not immediately close his mouth around Will's fingers - an invitation to touch, to feel, to remember the promises sighed past those lips. Adoration rather than cruelty, affection rather than brutality. Will spreads his fingers across Hannibal's teeth, pushes them against his tongue, splays them to see his lips move out of shape and when finally Hannibal sucks against them enough to hollow his cheeks, Will gasps.

His hips rock against the air, seeking contact, finding none, but for where the taut pink head bounces against his belly with each needy movement. Moaning open-mouthed against Hannibal's fingers, Will's lips shine with spit, glistening red when Hannibal pulls them away to instead circle his opening once more.

Will slowly, reluctantly draws his own from from Hannibal's mouth, thumb pushing against his lips - beautiful, always Will's favorite fascination of the man. Curling his back upwards, Will slides his fingers alongside Hannibal's own - to still them now, to join them next.

"Please," Will murmurs, voice shaking. "Please don't - don't let me go again. Come and find me. If I try to go, bring me back," he asks, eyes wide. "Please. Promise me."

Hannibal kisses him, enough to feel Will shudder, part his lips for him, close his eyes. Fingers seek, one of his, one of Will's, pushing, spreading, deeper, curling.

"Always,” he breathes, nudging Will’s face up softly with his own, kissing beneath his jaw, adding another finger to feel Will tense, relax, groan in pleasure. He takes Will's hand with his, pulls it to rest over his head again, and lines up, Will’s knees bumping up against his sides as he slowly presses in.

Reminders, slow and deep and warm, kissing against the soft skin of Will’s throat when he arches, gasps, squeezes his fingers with Hannibal’s. He thinks of how much he had missed Will in those few days he had stopped talking to him, had tried to cut ties. Thinks how he had come prepared to convince and ask, prepared to leave if Will was adamant he go. 

And now, beneath him, Will twists in pleasure, exhausted and breathless and flushed, and Hannibal knows he won't go home this evening, after this, knows he will sleep with Will pressed close against his side, wake early to dress and go to Baltimore. He whispers promises against Will’s skin, growls them, bites them against him.

There are still truths to tell, confessions, perhaps apologies and Will pushes them aside for now to let the warm reassurances that Hannibal offers him fill him rather than the cold, lifeless worry that has brought the last week to a seemingly insurmountable halt. There is time for that later, when the promises have been lived a little longer, when they have settled into a routine together and Will can speak honestly at last about how this came to be. For now it’s all too fragile, that even a week apart could so disrupt them, and so Will takes comfort in the promises, the kisses, and the welcome wholeness of Hannibal inside him once more.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Belgard** : a belgard displays a silent intimacy, a sweet and loving look.


End file.
